By Deb Thomas.
Lula would not come inside. Stubborn, willful, tiny thing; she’s never stayed outside for very long on her own.
That afternoon, I whistled and called for the long haired tuxedo cat from the deck; usually at my side by the first whistle. “Luuuu-laaaaa, Luuuuuuu-laaaaa,” I yelled out into the air, but no response this time. It was still early in the afternoon, and I was ready for the neighborhood kids with a few spooky outdoor props, and candy, but I wanted to go get more cider as our adult kids would come home later after their jobs. The large black plastic caldron–filled with candy, was set on a chair by the driveway light, with a “Help yourself, but don’t be Greedy” sign, and chicken soup was in the slow cooker on the counter for supper that night. I’d told my husband I intended to go for a walk, and later we’d gather to watch the Trick-Or-Treaters, and eat casually in the living room. The last thing he said on his way to work was, “Have a good look around, because snow is on the way, maybe tonight if the temp drops far enough. Whatever you do, don’t go into the woods alone. You know the graveyard has never been found, and it’s supposed to be a big pit. It’s Halloween. ”
This was his standard walking-in-the-woods speech. “Pessimist,” I called as he closed the door.
Because it was the last day of October, and a beautiful afternoon for Trick-Or-Treating, I worried Lula would growl at the kids who came up the driveway, then go hide out by the woodpile watching until they left, leaving herself vulnerable to predators. She was an indoor cat – ninety five percent of the time, and the other five percent she scooted in and out of the house at will or, was by anyone’s side – outside. She would rather be with us. Even though she had her own door, this time, I just wanted to shoo her inside so I could go. We’ve had Fishers, Fox, Turkeys, Deer, Coyotes and other meandering wildlife cut through the backyard ever since we moved here as it belonged, rightfully, to them and we usually kept any pets inside. But Lula was different; she was more dog-like and highly territorial, and I loved walking with her around the yard. As long as you played fetch with her, or were exploring the stone wall, she was your buddy. But not today. I’d gone back in for the candy and she had stayed outside to chatter at the squirrels. “So, where are you now, Miss Lu?”
Still, it was a bright, warm afternoon with abundant sunshine, and I ignored my husband’s earlier prognostication; the forest behind our house beckoned. I decided to go for a walk and call to her down the path into the ravine; I put on my long coat though, just in case it got windy. I ignored the weather report that morning.
Long ago, Wangunk tribes lived throughout our town, and I liked to think they used the same pathways. These Native Americans had byways throughout the lower Connecticut River, which in time became local roads and occupied lands reaching west to roughly to the Hudson River. Ancient pathways through our wooded lot and beyond our property, went into the state forest land as well–all around us. Shadowy deer were always seen behind the trees, in the side yard, also favorited by turkeys crossing the road to and from other foraging places. The coyotes, too – were usually sighted in the woods leading down to ledges where heaped boulders created perfect caves for dens. I followed the path into the shady area of the ravine going deeper and deeper into the forest, every now and then calling out for Lula.
All sense of time was lost for the half hour or so I followed the path; it was slippery here and there due to the deluge we’d had a few days before. I’d taken every trail around our house, and through the woods around us, for the past twenty years and had marked out some trails with orange tape. Lula had been with me a couple times recently, but I didn’t want her to get in the habit of going deep into the woods. There were approximately two miles of dense forest in one direction to the next back road. I’d been all around the perimeter; I had permission from several land owners, who only asked that I remember to wear bright safety orange or blue in the woods. The sun was behind the hill, and shadows were lengthening. I was about to turn back, when I heard the familiar meow, and yodel of Lula running to greet me. “There you are, Lu!” I said, bending to pat her, and scoop her up in my arms. Some cats are vocal all the time, but not this one – unless she is truly happy to see you. Then she sort of increases the volume and warbles a most friendly greeting. Yet, she’s not keen on being held. “Let’s keep going to the top and take a look, ok?” I told her as I put her down and we started climbing up to the top of the rocky ledge. I looked back through the woods and it seemed unfamiliar.
“Darned coat is making me sweat,” I thought. No choice though; carry it or keep it on. Glad for the pockets where I could stuff an apple for me and treats for Lula, its turtle-neck like hood was normally wonderful on a breezy winter day, and glad it was bright blue and easily seen in the woods if anyone was looking, but too much coat for today. There would be a long walk for us once we reached the top; the road would lead us back home in a couple miles. If I’d only put my cell phone in the other pocket.
Sure; our New England Autumn woods are a spectacular sight and it is a rare gift, at the end of October, to have colorful leaves still on the trees. But that year we had a later than usual peak season, and many trees were just now losing leaves. In minutes, the falling leaves obliterated any footpath. In minutes, the red tags on the trees from the trails I marked would disappear into the darkness. All the trees started to look alike at the top of the hill where I focused my attention. My nimble cat was having little difficulty picking her way through the rocky outcropping, but I struggled due to the loose gravel, my stiff new red hiking shoes, and long, down-filled coat. Shadows deepened. Very soon the sun would fall behind the trees; I did not want to walk home in the dark on this road. As soon as I found footing on the upward slope, I reached for a branch to pull myself up. That’s when I began to slide and roll down the hillside.
*******
Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.
– John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, (1938), p. 337.
“Com’ on, Mushie,” Scott urged. “There’s a lot of wood we need to carry over the stream.” I trudged along behind the tall boy, the crush of my sixth grade year. The wood was heavy and I was in sticky mud near the stream. We were best friends; buds to the end. Reading science books together and watching National Geographic Specials at each other’s house and eating lunches together all summer too. We’d been friends since second grade, but sixth grade was suddenly the best year ever because we had a project to do; Scott designed a tree house. We’d carried planks for three afternoons after school into the woods beyond the cornfield and we intended to start nailing them across the perfectly shaped branches of a tree he picked out, that afternoon. It was all okay with my mom who always waited for me; one half hour extra and then I was to come straight home. Scott’s father said he’d bring me home if it started to rain. He told us to be careful of old Indian burial mounds as we lived on the edge of the prairie crossroads.
“Just because you are ten feet tall and can leap over buildings in a single bound,” I muttered to his back, a good twenty feet ahead of me. We planned the tree house so we could look at wildlife now and again in the spring since we both enjoyed science and biology. Scott enjoyed drawing pictures of catapults and levers and buildings; I was more into reading about the Potawatomi Indians, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, The Hound of the Baskervilles that fall. A good year for sure; I had been thinking that when, WHOOSH! I slipped into a mounded brush pile. It only looked like sticks and tree limbs, but was the entrance to a deep hole of some sort. When I stopped sliding, I landed on a log hitting my head in the process. It was lights out, for me.
After a long time, I woke and discovered I was deep underground and my boots were stuck in the muddy bottom. Scott was nowhere and it was dark outside. I looked up towards the sky at the moon, and called out, but no one was there.
*************
Must have hit the back of my skull; when I woke up, it was dark and I was slightly underground. No Lula, and no idea of orientation, since I was in darkness and my head hurt. Next, I tried to move my legs but found to my great surprise, that I was tangled up in branches and it seemed my boots were stuck in the debris and sticky mud. I wrapped up in the coat, of course grateful that I’d put it on after all, since it was getting colder. Lula then called to me from the top of the hill outside, and I was relieved to have her company. “If she was a dog,” I was thinking, “like Rin-Tin-Tin, she’d go for help.” I gripped at something behind me, poking my back, and it only fell away. All the tree branches felt like bones as I clutched at them, trying to get up. My head hurt and I fell back into the leaves and branches, and was soon back in the land of the unconscious. My last thought was to start singing, but my head hurt too much.
*************
The sixth grade had been full of new things to do. I lay in the brush pile and began to list the new things we’d done, including the field trip to the orchard, and then the visit to the Chicago Tribune. Tomorrow was Halloween and I was crazy-happy about that. Our school had the best parade, and games, and Mr. Ritchie’s 5th Grade classroom’s haunted house. The cold night air was all around me, and I wanted to go home to sleep in my bed, with my dog Coco, and I wanted my mom and dad and brother. “They’ll never find me down here,” I thought and I began to feel sorry for myself.
To pass more time, I began singing all the songs from Choir rehearsals which we were learning for the Winter Concert. “The Ukrainian Carol of the Bells,” and, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” among others. When done, I started into the Beatles’ music. It was Scott’s favorite song.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It’s based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job
So I want to be a paperback writer Paperback writer!
It’s a dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn’t understand
His son is working for the Daily Mail
It’s a steady job
But he wants to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer!
Paperback writer, paperback writer
It’s a thousand pages, give or take a few
I’ll be writing more in a week or two
I could make it longer if you like the style
I can change it ’round
And I want to be a paperback writer
As I was winding up to do the last line, a hand reached down to me, pulling at my coat, and saying excitedly, “I GOT HER; SHE’S IN HERE!” I shrieked, and realized it was Scott, my pal, my crush and the sweet and wonderful love of my eleven year old life – trying to get me to stand. “Mushie,” he said, holding me, “are you okay? Can you walk?”
“I can’t, Scott,” I told him, “I’m under these sticks and my boots are stuck.”
“Then we’ll leave them here.” And with one big tug, he lifted me straight from under the roots and boggy wet mud, right out of my boots and I wrapped my legs around him. He was that strong. He was able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He was ten feet tall. “Hold on, and I’ll put you on a log. My brother Paul and my Dad’s gonna pull us up with a rope.”
Then he told me, “I heard you singing from far away.”
***************
At once, a memory of sixth grade flooded my senses. I was back in the treehouse with Scott watching the flock of geese in the cornfield. Aware of the cold in the pit and the now stinging in my left ankle, I was wondering how I would make it up to the road. It started to snow, so I started to sing:
Paperback writer!
Paperback writer, paperback writer
It’s a thousand pages, give or take a few
I’ll be writing more in a week or two
I could make it longer if you like the style
I can change it ’round
And I want to be a paperback writer
In a short time, I heard, “You down there, Deb?” yelled my husband. “Or is that a radio?” Car headlights and a flashlight bounced off the accumulating snow. I could see my husband’s legs and soon, he was pulling me up, but I insisted my hiking boots were stuck.
“I need my ankle on that leg,” I told him as he yanked.
“No good, you’ll have to lose the shoes.” He pulled away some lose roots and then unlaced the shoe on my left foot, and I was able to pull free of the tangle.
Once we were in the car together and I stopped hugging him, I asked, “How did you know where to look?” We passed some kids in costumes, and parents out on the back road home.
“Lula would not stop howling in the back yard, and I knew you’d gone for a walk.” I figured instead of the usual way, I’d try the end of the trail and drove along with the window open and, I heard you singing.”
Finally home again, we sat in the living room with our kids who had now come over for dinner. My head wasn’t hurting, but I assured my family I’d stay up a while. “Lulaaaa,” I called, and reunited with her once again with a head pat, as we all had bowls of soup and cornbread. After watching a movie, the kids left, and it was bedtime. A long and cold day. With snow. All the lights were out—the big pumpkin too on the front steps. As I turned to go upstairs to bed I noticed that someone brought Lula a new toy.
“Very realistic,” I said to my husband Steve, the next morning.
He looked at me like I had three heads. “Deb, that was sticking out of your coat pocket last night.”
———————-
NOTES:
- Wangunks lived, farmed, and prospered at one time, throughout Middlesex County before the Pequot Wars. For a fascinating read go to: https://yipp.yale.edu/tribe/83 where you can also see the Middletown plot lines and “Plan of the Wangunk Reservation in 1756.”
- Lula is here, too, guarding all. See if you can spot her in the photo below.
- Scott, my 6th Grade Crush is alive and well, in my childhood home near Markham, Illinois. We found arrowheads all the time from First Nation Potawatomi tribe.
- Adult Crush is alive and well (and after 25 years, still makes faces at me), in our Higganum home.
- Generous liberties were taken with truth, justice, and The American Way! (last reference to Superman)
Photo credits: path in the woods by Kathy Brown; Lula on branch by Steve Umba; moon by Susan DeCarli; hand stock image off internet.
